Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO marketing is the process of improving your website ranking in search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines.Increasing your site's organic ranking helps drive valuable organic traffic to your website. Why does SEO marketing matter?Search engines want to provide the best results for users.

How It Works for Small Businesses?

Want to know what is SEO and how it works? We’ve made this simple SEO guide for you.

One of the biggest questions that we get from our clients here at LYFE marketing is – what is SEO and how does it work? For businesses that are just starting to build their website or going through a website redesign, search engine optimization or SEO can feel a bit intimidating.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Even if you do not have an experienced in-house SEO associate, you can still start making some positive changes that will help you improve your search engine optimization. With a little SEO knowledge under your belt, you can be on your way to improving your brand’s search engine ranking in no time.

Below, we’ll provide an answer to the million dollar question – what is SEO and how it works? We’ll also cover some of the basics of SEO so that you can better understand how it impacts your business and what you need to do to be in good shape.

If you’re here, you’re probably wondering what is SEO and how it works. Let’s dig deeper.

Before that you should know what is paid difficulty(pd) in SEO. It means that if you were looking to pay to target that certain keyword then your tool estimates how difficult it would be based on the competition. SEO Competition or Organic Competition (also called Keyword Difficulty) is a score indicating how hard it would be to have your web site rank high on search engine result pages (SERP) for a certain keyword.

What is SEO and How It Works

SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of optimizing your website to get organic, or un-paid, traffic from the search engine results page. In other words, SEO involves making certain changes to your website design and content that make your site more attractive to a search engine. You do this in hopes that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page.

Though search engine optimization can get quite complex when it comes to all the different factors that impact your ranking, the basic process is not as difficult to understand. Search engines want to provide the best service for their users. This means delivering results on the search engine pages that are not only high quality but also relevant to what the searcher is looking for.

In order to do this, search engines will scan, or crawl, different websites to better understand what the site is about. This helps them deliver more relevant results to those who are searching for certain topics or keywords. Similarly, the search engines will scan the site to determine how easy it is to navigate and read, rewarding user-friendly sites with higher rankings on the search engine results page.

SEO is the process that organizations go through to help make sure that their site ranks high in the search engines for relevant keywords and phrases. For instance, let’s say that you have an article about how to build a birdhouse. In order to get your content in front of the right people, you want to try to optimize your this blog post so that it will show up as a top result for anyone who searches for the phrase “build a birdhouse.”

There are many benefits of SEO for your business. By improving your SEO, you can work to expand your visibility on the search engines. This helps you reach and engage more potential customers. By creating more engaging and effective SEO-focused content, you can increase your chances of bringing in more targeted organic traffic.

Factors That Impact SEO

Now that you know what is SEO and how it works, let’s take a look at some of the factors that can impact your search engine optimization ranking. Search engine giant, Google will never give away the exact algorithm they use to rank sites. However, we do have a pretty good understanding of some of the factors that impact search engine results page (SERP) rankings. These factors include both on-page and off-page factors, which we will discuss below.

Content Marketing

Before we dive into some of the factors of on and off-page SEO, let’s talk about content. Content is effective in both attracting the search engines and helping your organization make connections with site visitors.

The more quality, relevant content pieces that you have on your site, the more likely search engines will be to rank your pages higher on the search engine results page. Similarly, the more engaging and effective content you have on your site, the more likely your visitors will be to spend some quality time on your website and maybe even make a purchase.

The secret to creating content that is optimized for both the search engines and your human site visitors is to create a variety of different types of content pieces that are well-written and on topics that are most relevant to your audience. Here are just a few types of content that you can focus on to help improve your content offering and, thus, your search engine rankings:

• Blog posts and articles
• Social media content
• E-books and whitepapers
• How-To Guides and Tutorials
• Videos and audio recordings
• Infographics or other visual content

Another important thing to consider when creating content for your site is SEO keywords and phrases. These are relevant words and phrases that a search engine user might type in when looking for answers to their questions or relevant products and services. When you create content around these keywords and phrases, you improve your chances of ranking higher for these keywords on the search engine results page.

Yet another factor that can impact your content, and thus your search engine ranking, is how fresh your content is. Freshness basically refers to how often your organization posts new content to your site. However, creating brand new content is not the only way to keep your content fresh. You can also freshen up your content by updating posts, rewriting them to make them more effective, or adding new information and statistics over time.

Though creating content takes time and resources, it will more than pay off in the end. Search engines love great content and consumers need quality content to better understand the value your organization can provide. Start off by creating a few blog posts and work to build a following on social media. Once you have a group of loyal fans and followers, your organization can work to create different types of media to attract and engage new leads.

On-Page SEO

The on-page SEO factors are those elements that happen on your website. These are the things that you have complete control over, meaning that you can work to improve these factors over time by following best practices for SEO. This goes beyond just your content marketing to the deeper levels of your site’s HTML.

Here are just a few of the on-page SEO factors that can help you improve your search ranking:

• Title Tag – The title tag on each page tells the search engines what your page is about. This should be 70 characters or less, including both the keyword your content focuses on and your business name.
• Meta Description – The meta description on your website tells search engines a little bit more about what each page is about. This is also used by your human visitors to better understand what the page is about and if it’s relevant. This should include your keyword and also provide enough details to tell the reader what the content is about.
• Sub-headings – Not only do sub-headings make your content easier for visitors to read, but it can also help improve your SEO. You can use H1, H2, and H3 tags to help search engines better understand what your content is about.
• Internal Links – Building internal links, or hyperlinks to other content on your site, can help search engines learn more about your site. For example, if you are writing a post about the value of a specific product or service, you can link to the product or service page in your blog post.
• Image Name and ALT Tags – If you are using images on your website or within your blog content, you will also want to include your keyword or phrase in the image name and alt tag. This will help search engines better index your images, which may appear when users perform an image search for a certain keyword or phrase.

When strategically placing your SEO keywords and phrases on your pages, it’s important to avoid over-optimization. Google and other search engines will penalize your page if it attempts to use keywords too many times throughout the content.

In addition, you want to make sure that each piece of content focuses on just one or two keywords. This helps ensure that your content is specific and relevant. Trying to tackle too many keywords at once may negatively impact your search engine optimization as it often makes for un-focused and thin content.

While site content plays a vital role in your search engine rankings, it’s also important to consider your site architecture. You want to use a website design that makes it easy for search engines to scan or crawl your pages and content. Building internal links between your pages and creating a site map can both help improve your site’s crawlability and give your search engines a better understanding of your content.

Yet another concern when it comes to your site’s architecture is whether or not your website is mobile-friendly. Many consumers are searching for information and brands on their mobile devices. You need to make sure that these users are able to view, read, and navigate your website from their mobile device. Not only does this impact the user experience, but it can also affect your SEO.

Off-Page SEO

In addition to the on-page SEO elements that your organization has control over, there are also off-page SEO factors that can impact your ranking. Though you do not have direct control over these off-page factors, there are ways that you can improve your chances of having these factors work out in your favor. (But more about that later!)

Here are a few of the different off-page SEO factors that can impact your search engine rankings:

• Trust – Trust is becoming an increasingly important factor in a site’s Google ranking. This is how Google determines whether you have a legitimate site that visitors can trust. One of the best ways to improve trust is by building quality backlinks from sites that have authority.
• Links – One of the most popular ways to build off-page SEO is through backlinks. You want to be careful here as spamming sites with your links is a quick and easy way to get your site banned from the search engines. Instead, take the time to build relationships with influencers and fans who create quality content and will link back to your site in their own content.
• Social – Another important off-page SEO factor are social signals, such as likes and shares. When it comes to boosting SEO, you want to look for quality shares from influencers. The more quality content you publish, the more likely you will be to get people to share your content with others.

Though you do not have direct control over what happens outside of your organization, you can increase your chances of improving off-page SEO simply by creating quality content that others will find valuable. The more relevant and interesting your content is, the more likely others will be to link to your content and share it on social media. The more people trust your content, the more the search engines will as well.

Want help in SEO?

This is Keyword Researcher. It's the only SEO software that helps you find Long-Tail Keywords and create SEO-Optimized Content for your website.

Use "Keyword Researcher" to discover high-value Long-Tail Keywords from Google AutoComplete, Organize CSV files from the Google Keyword Planner, and write SEO-Optimized Articles for your website.

Keyword Researcher is an easy-to-use Keyword Discover Tool. Once activated, it emulates a human using Google Autocomplete, and repeatedly types thousands of queries into Google. Each time a partial phrase is entered, Google tries to predict what it thinks the whole phrase might be. We simply save this prediction. And, as it turns out, when you do this for every letter of the alphabet (A-Z), then you're left with hundreds of great Long Tail keyword phrases.

How To Rank Number One On Google!

Every business and website owner dreams of ranking number one on Google. The reasons are clear: reaching that top spot (or even one of the top three spots) would mean increased traffic to your site, visibility and the potential for sales to catapult your business ahead of the competition.

Unfortunately, high rankings rarely happen by chance. Even the most skilled and knowledgeable marketers struggle with getting the top-ranking spot. So, how can a regular business owner hope to achieve this feat? While there's no way to absolutely guarantee high rankings, this post will look at some strategies anyone can use to seriously increase their chances of claiming that #1 spot.

1. Go niche.

Part of succeeding at SEO is understanding the competitive landscape. As a small business owner, you don't want to be competing with large organizations that have seemingly-unlimited marketing budgets. While there's always a chance you can outrank them, more likely you'll just end up wasting your time and money.

This is why it's so important to go niche. Here's what I mean by this: Instead of trying to compete with big companies for extremely popular (and usually more general) keywords, drill down and become a "big fish in a small pond."

Keep in mind, this will often mean shifting the focus of your business from more general to more specific products or services. For instance, instead of exclusively offering general home renovation services, you could consider specializing in "one day bathroom renos" or "custom kitchen makeovers." These more specific keyword phrases will likely be much easier to rank for, which will mean you can start ranking that much faster.

2. Choose realistic keywords.

Anyone can get the top spot in Google, if they target the right keywords. For instance, if I optimized a page for "blue wubbie nubbie doll," I could probably grab the top stop in a couple of days. However (and it's a big however), would I actually want to rank for this phrase? Probably not, considering it's not even a real product.

My point is this: If you choose keywords that are obscure enough, it's easy to rank. Of course, we don't want to rank for obscure keywords; we want to rank for keywords that people are actually looking for. Real queries that someone typed in their browser.

Using tools like Google's Keyword Planner or you can check this tool Keyword Researcher, look for relevant keywords that have a decent number of searches, but little competition. Once your website has a bit more authority and you're ranking for a number of easier keywords, you can always move on to more competitive keywords that will earn you more traffic.

3. Optimize each piece of content for your keywords.

Once you've "gone niche" and have chosen some easier keywords, it's time to use those keywords in strategic places on your page. While you certainly don't want to overuse your keywords, it is important to use them in a variety of ways within your content. Most importantly, focus on using them in your:

• URL: For instance, instead of www.yoursite.com/sh8xks6.htm, use www.yoursite.com/your-keywords-here.
• Title tag.
• Headings: H1, H2, etc.
• Alt image tag and image captions, where appropriate.
• Throughout your content.

Keep in mind that Google (and your readers) favor comprehensive content that does a great job of covering the topic at hand. So, while it's important to use your keywords somewhere in your content, that's no substitute for writing longer, more in-depth content that really does justice to the topic.

4. Add tons of content to your site.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 88% of B2B companies now use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. This involves using a wide variety of content-type - blog posts, newsletters, webinars, infographics, videos, etc. - to attract potential customers.

If you want to get top rankings in Google, you absolutely must be adding new content to your site regularly. But don't just add content for content's sake; add useful, high-quality content that actually provides value to your customers and prospects.

This content will help you boost your rankings in two primary ways. First, more content means more keywords, and therefore more opportunities for Google to return your site in the search results. Second, the more content you have, the more links you generally accumulate. Plus, having lots of content is great for getting visitors to stay on your site longer. Win-win!

5. Acquire links to your site.

Links continue to play a critical role in terms of SEO. In fact, according to Moz's 2015 Search Engine Ranking Factors report, inbound links are the single most important element for achieving high rankings.

Some strategies you can use to acquire links to your site include:

• Guest posting on popular sites in your niche. Even if you don't get a followed link in your post or bio, the increased visibility you get makes it worthwhile.
• Creating evergreen content that other bloggers and journalists will want to link to (e.g., How-to posts, tutorials, guides, etc.)
• Looking for broken links on industry sites, and requesting that they replace them with links to your site.

Final thoughts

There is no surefire way to get a #1 ranking on Google. However, targeting the right keywords and audience can significantly increase your chances. Follow that up by creating and promoting tons of well-optimized content, and you're good to go! Those top rankings could happen much sooner than you think.

Want Help with SEO?

This is Keyword Researcher. It's the only SEO software that helps you find Long-Tail Keywords and create SEO-Optimized Content for your website.

Use "Keyword Researcher" to discover high-value Long-Tail Keywords from Google AutoComplete, Organize CSV files from the Google Keyword Planner, and write SEO-Optimized Articles for your website.

Keyword Researcher is an easy-to-use Keyword Discover Tool. Once activated, it emulates a human using Google Autocomplete, and repeatedly types thousands of queries into Google. Each time a partial phrase is entered, Google tries to predict what it thinks the whole phrase might be. We simply save this prediction. And, as it turns out, when you do this for every letter of the alphabet (A-Z), then you're left with hundreds of great Long Tail keyword phrases.

Top 11 Local SEO Mistakes

Are You Sabotaging Your Google Rankings?

Go through this list like a checklist to determine if you’re sabotaging your own Google rankings.

We frequently complete SEO audits and nearly 100% of the businesses we review are making at least 1 of the 11 common mistakes in this article.  So there’s a good chance you’ll find you’re making a few mistakes as well.

With that said, don’t get discouraged if you do find a few mistakes. The good news is it’s fairly easy to fix all of these.

My goal here is to help you identify what’s wrong and what’s preventing you from ranking high in Google’s local results, and then it’s up to you to take action to get everything cleaned up.

Alright, let’s get started with the easiest mistake to fix…

1. No Google My Business Profile

When you think of search engine optimization (SEO), then you immediately think of your website ranking in Google’s results.  However, with local SEO, there’s a bit of a twist.

Search for “nearby dentists” and you’ll see a big map in the upper right corner.  Plus, you’ll see information for dental offices listed in the main results (i.e. name, address, phone number, reviews, etc.) .

Here’s the thing… that information is from each business’s Google My Business profile page, not their website!

So if you do not yet have a Google My Business profile page, you’re missing out. It’s 100% free to set this up and shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes of your time. 

Don’t forget the very last step which is to verify your business listing.  That’s an important step to ensure you’re the owner of your page so you (and no one else) can make edits in the future.

2. Duplicate Listings

The next common mistake I see is having duplicate Google My Business profile pages.

Google hates duplicate content in their search results.  It’s a bad experience for their users to see the same information twice in their results, and it’s a waste of Google’s resources to analyze and store duplicate information.

That’s why creating duplicate listings is against Google’s terms of service.  Each business location should only have one Google My Business profile page.

3. Missing Relevant Categories

OK, now let’s look at the most common (and often most costly) mistake made on the actual Google My Business profile page.  In my experience, the biggest mistake is missing relevant categories.

Don’t rush this critical step when you’re setting up your page.

Think of categories like sections of the Yellow Pages.  The more sections you advertise in, the more likely your prospects are to find you.

So the more relevant categories, the better.  Note that it’s against Google’s terms to include irrelevant categories so be careful when you select your categories.

Google doesn’t make this super easy so I recommend you take a look at this big list to find all the relevant categories for your business. Another tip is to review the categories top-ranking local businesses have selected in their profiles.

4. Missing Contact Information On Your Website

Go to your website’s contact page and confirm all of your contact information is listed on the page.

More specifically, make sure that your business Name, Address, and Phone number are listed as text (not an image!).  This ensures that Google can easily read your contact information and verify its accuracy.

Google doesn’t want to show incorrect information in their search results.  That would be devastating for their credibility, and over time they would lose users.

So one of the measures Google takes to ensure accuracy is to compare the information listed on your website versus the information listed on your Google My Business profile page.  If your website and profile aren’t displaying the same exact contact information, you’ll want to edit your website and/or your Google My Business profile to make them consistent.

This leads us to mistake #5…

5. Inconsistent NAP Information Online

Mistake #5 is inconsistent NAP, which is simply an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone number.

As I mentioned above, it’s important to have the same contact information listed on both your website and your Google My Business page.

But that’s not all…

Google takes this a giant step further and compares your contact information listed on your website versus the information listed on other websites across the entire internet!

That means you must have consistent NAP on every single webpage that lists your contact information.  Mainly we’re talking about business directories since those are the types of websites most likely to display your contact information publicly online.

6. Missing Citations

A citation is simply a mention of your NAP on another website.

In mistake #5 above, we emphasized the importance of consistency across all your online citations.  Well just because you have consistency doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.

It’s possible you’re missing some important citations that are hurting your chances of ranking high in Google.

To check if you’re missing important citations, you can start by using the Moz Local search tool.  If you find there are opportunities, then simply add all of your business information to the websites.

OK, that’s enough about your NAP and citations.  Let’s move on to the mistakes that aren’t so easy to fix…

7. No Customer Reviews

Most businesses struggle to get customer reviews online.  So if you’re lacking reviews on your Google My Business profile, then don’t beat yourself up too bad because you’re not alone.

The problem is that it takes some real effort on your customers’ end to add a review.

I’m sorry to say there’s no silver bullet solution here.  All you can do is ask (via email, in-person and over the phone) and make it as easy as possible for every customer to leave a review.

Of those 3 methods, we’ve found that asking via email — along with a link and directions  — is the most effective method because your customer doesn’t have to find your profile, you’re leading them right to it.

Getting positive reviews will likely be a slow process, but over time it adds up and will give you a real competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate.

8. Low Quality, Thin Website Content

The remaining 4 mistakes are not directly related to your Google My Business profile.  That’s because Google changed their algorithm to incorporate more signals, like the content on your website.

Your website plays an important role in how high your Google My Business profile will rank in the search results.  If your website is full of low quality, thin website content (less than 500 words per page, as a general rule of thumb), then you’re going to struggle to rank in Google.

If you think about this from Google’s perspective then it makes a lot of sense…

Google’s mission is to give searchers the most relevant webpages that are most likely to answer the searchers’ questions.  Generally, webpages with more content provide more information than webpages with less content.  That’s why it’s so important to review all your key webpages and make sure they have at least 500 words of relevant content.

9. No High-Quality, Relevant Links

Links from other high-quality, relevant websites have always been a major factor in SEO, and more recently Google is using links in their local ranking algorithm.

That means you can’t just rely on an optimized Google My Business profile page and citations.  You also have to invest in tactics to get high quality, relevant links.

You’re probably wondering how do you get other websites to link to your website?

The first step we always recommend is to get your business listed in quality, relevant directories. Directories can help to lay a foundation of links, and they also provide citations (mentions of your Name, Address, and Phone number).

Over the long-term, the best way to attract quality links is to publish and to promote great content.  I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but the best way to get other websites to link to your website is to create something worth linking to.  If you try to use shortcuts, then you’ll likely get yourself into trouble down the road.

10. Ignoring Social Media

There’s a lot of debate about this, but regardless of whether you agree that social media activity directly impacts rankings, there’s no denying the fact that social media is a great opportunity to create more exposure and buzz about your business.

As mentioned above, the best way to get links to your site is with great content.  And one of the best ways to promote your content to get it in front of your target audience is via social media.

11. No Mobile-Optimized Website

The final mistake is not creating a mobile-optimized website.

Local SEO and mobile go hand in hand because more and more people are using their mobile devices to search for local businesses on the go.

I personally do this all the time…

Even when I’m home, I’ll use my mobile device rather than go and turn on my computer and wait for it to load up.  As more of your prospects turn to mobile devices, they are going to expect to see a mobile-optimized website.

Google has already started to experiment with labels in their search results to tell searchers which results have mobile-friendly webpages.  Then back in April 2015, Google updated their algorithm to include mobile-friendliness signals in their ranking algorithm. And more recently, Google has announced that they’re moving to mobile-first indexing, which means that your mobile website will be the primary website Google analyzes for ranking purposes.

So if you haven’t already, you need to create a mobile-optimized website in order to compete in the local search results in the coming months and years.

Want Help with Local SEO?

This is Keyword Researcher. It's the only SEO software that helps you find Long-Tail Keywords and create SEO-Optimized Content for your website.

Use "Keyword Researcher" to discover high-value Long-Tail Keywords from Google AutoComplete, Organize CSV files from the Google Keyword Planner, and write SEO-Optimized Articles for your website.

Keyword Researcher is an easy-to-use Keyword Discover Tool. Once activated, it emulates a human using Google Autocomplete, and repeatedly types thousands of queries into Google. Each time a partial phrase is entered, Google tries to predict what it thinks the whole phrase might be. We simply save this prediction. And, as it turns out, when you do this for every letter of the alphabet (A-Z), then you're left with hundreds of great Long Tail keyword phrases.